Words, values and identities explored

Put bluntly, the I and the WE were colonialised by the IT. The Good and the Beautiful were overtaken by a growth in monological Truth . . . . Full of itself and flush with stunning victories, empirical science became scientism, the belief that there is no reality save that revealed by science, and no truth save that which science delivers. . . Consciousness itself, and the mind and heart and soul of humankind could not be seen with a microscope, a telescope, a cloud chamber, a photographic plate, and so all were pronounced epiphenomenal at best, illusory at worst. . . . . Art and morals and contemplation and spirit were all demolished by the scientific bull in the china shop of consciousness.

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I regret to say that the bull is Wilbur’s own. Consciousness, mind, heart, soul, humankind, are all being studied by science whether by microscope, telescope, cloud chamber, photographic plate, or whatever other methods are available. Some people might have said they were epiphenomena but not on the basis of science. It was an opinion, and there are none worse than religious souls at considering that anything uttered by a scientist is science. A scientist is as entitled to an opinion as a guru but though neither are necessarily right, the scientist is likely to base their opinion on evidence and not fancy. Those who prefer to believe in God or New Age fads, cannot seem to get that science actually tells us reliably and none dogmatically about the world. Science cannot be dogmatic because it is subject to constant testing, and has to be corrigible so that new evidence can be accommodated. Science works, so why not get to accept that it is God’s work, if a God is what you desperately need to believe. Religion used to be science, but it preferred dogma. It must learn to incorporate science again.

To be fair to Wilber, he is attacking scientism and not science, naive realism rather than empirical scepticism. Also my own discipline, a social science if you can accept that there is such a thing, contends that mind is either an epiphenomenon or an emergent property of brain complexity, so the case he is attempting to refute is not a straw man that he has invented but out there among people who would call themselves scientists. The notion that mind might be an emanation of the spirit would not simply be defined as beyond the purview of psychology but dismissed as nonsense by many psychologists. From the Baha’i point of view, religion and science are complementary paths to an understanding of the same reality. Unfortunately too many of us — scientist and deist alike — mistake the map for the landscape. Wilber, and others such as Donaldson in her book ‘Human Minds,’ are seeking to find ways of narrowing the gap between the two world views and I think that is a necessary task though still at an early stage of development. I’m sorry if the cheap shot about bull got in the way of the real issue!